Judge sentences teen to life without parole for North Carolina mass
shooting that killed 5
[February 14, 2026]
By GARY D. ROBERTSON
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A judge sentenced an 18-year-old who acknowledged
killing five people in a North Carolina mass shooting to life in prison
without parole Friday, rejecting arguments that he deserved the chance
for release decades from now.
Austin David Thompson was 15 during the Oct. 13, 2022, attack that began
at his Raleigh home when he shot and repeatedly stabbed his 16-year-old
brother, James.
Equipped with firearms and wearing camouflage, Thompson then fatally
shot four others — including an off-duty city police officer — in his
neighborhood and along a greenway. He was arrested in a shed after a
self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head.
Thompson pleaded guilty last month to five counts of first-degree murder
and five other counts less than two weeks before his scheduled trial.
Thompson, who did not speak publicly in court, was led away in handcuffs
after the sentencing. Family members of the shooting victims cried as
the sentence was handed down. Thompson’s attorneys announced plans to
appeal the sentence.
Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway had the option to sentence him to
life in prison with the chance for parole after at least 25 years, but
Thompson did not face the death penalty given his age at the time of the
crimes.
“It’s hard to conceive of a greater display of malice,” Ridgeway said
after chronicling the events of that day, adding that Thompson's months
of planning and fantasizing before the rampage confirmed he is the rare
juvenile offender “whose crime reflects irreparable corruption” and thus
required a life without parole sentence.
During the sentencing hearing that began last week, prosecutors revealed
the previously confidential contents of a handwritten note with
Thompson’s name and the shooting date found at his family's house in the
Hedingham subdivision.
The note said the “reason I did this is because I hate humans they are
destroying the planet/earth,” adding that he killed James Thompson
”because he would get in my way.”
Thompson “cannot tell you why he wrote that note the way that he did,”
defense lawyer Deonte’ Thomas said, noting that he had no history of
ecological-based anger. “And he cannot tell you why he ran down the
streets of Hedingham terrorizing people that day.”
But “he is not unredeemable, he is not incorrigible,” Thomas added in
asking Ridgeway to give him the opportunity one day to tell parole
commissioners he could “still be a productive person in society.”
Thompson's attorneys argued that the rampage happened during a
dissociative episode caused by medicine he regularly took for acne. A
psychiatrist who interviewed Thompson and a geneticist testified to
bolster the explanation, but Ridgeway rejected the theory Friday, saying
the facts belied the argument.
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Austin Thompson, center, listens in court in Raleigh, N.C., on
Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, as Wake County Superior Court Judge Paul C.
Ridgeway sentences him to five life sentences without the
possibility of parole. (Scott Sharpe/The News & Observer via AP,
Pool)
The judge seemed to account strongly for the prosecution's evidence
of Thompson’s internet search history leading up to the attack. They
said it included school shootings and was related to guns, assaults
and bomb-making materials, including details that Ridgeway said
appeared to match his deadly actions.
Nicole Connors, 52; Raleigh police Officer Gabriel Torres, 29; Mary
Marshall, 34; and Susan Karnatz, 49, also were killed in the
rampage. Two other people were wounded, including another police
officer involved in the search for Thompson.
“In the blink of an eye, everything changed for those people and for
the people that they left behind,” Wake County assistant prosecutor
Patrick Latour said Thursday while urging a sentence with no
potential parole. “And the thing that made it change was not some
acne medication. It was the defendant’s knowing, researched,
well-thought-out, planned, decisive actions.”
Jasmin Torres, the widow of Gabriel Torres and the mother of their
5-year-old daughter, asked Ridgeway last week to sentence Thompson
to life without parole, calling him a “monster.”
Rob Steele, Marshall's fiance at the time of her death, said after
the hearing that while five consecutive sentences of life without
parole were “what we were all hoping for,” Thompson still “ended
five lives for reasons that I still don’t really understand in this
case.”
Thompson’s parents testified they couldn’t explain why their son
committed the violence, calling him a normal, happy kid who did well
in school and showed no signs of destruction.
Thompson’s father pleaded guilty in 2024 to improperly storing his
handgun that authorities said was found when his son was arrested.
He received a suspended sentence and probation.
“We both lost our children, one at the hand of the other. We never
saw this coming and still cannot make sense of it,” mother Elise
Thompson said last week while telling the families of shooting
victims she will “forever be sorry for the pain that this has caused
you.”
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